


Unspoken Agreements

by orphan_account



Series: Chlodine Week 2019 [5]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Being too proud to admit when youre pushy, Cat, Chlodine - Freeform, Chlodine Week, Chlodine Week 2019, F/F, I'm looking at you Nandi, Longing, Mutual Pining, Pining, Self-Reflection, Very lucky., Youre lucky she loves you and she gets it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 02:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20351251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nadine had been sitting on the window seat in the living room, staring out at the droplets racing down the glass. One hand held a steaming mug close to her lips, the other lazily scratched behind the ear of the fluffy feline. She didn’t look her usual self. She also hadn’t gotten her work out for the day done. Her curls were pulled into a sad excuse for a topknot and she’d been wearing a wool sweater and sweatpants. She hadn’t even bothered to put on a bra let alone cook proper breakfast so she sat there with a cup of coffee instead.Her partner had been the occupant of her thoughts for the past few hours. The last time she saw her they’d argued.





	Unspoken Agreements

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so you can tell by the lenghts of these that I'm busy, OOF!  
This is Day 5: Longing/Pining

Nadine had been sitting on the window seat in the living room, staring out at the droplets racing down the glass. One hand held a steaming mug close to her lips, the other lazily scratched behind the ear of the fluffy feline. She didn’t look her usual self. She also hadn’t gotten her work out for the day done. Her curls were pulled into a sad excuse for a topknot and she’d been wearing a wool sweater and sweatpants. She hadn’t even bothered to put on a bra let alone cook proper breakfast so she sat there with a cup of coffee instead.

Her partner had been the occupant of her thoughts for the past few hours. The last time she saw her they’d argued.

* * *

A contact of Chloe’s, Charlie Cutter, asked for her help on a job. They had been a package deal for the past year and a half, so naturally, she tagged along. He had been sniffing out the location of Paititi, a lost city of gold, and going up against a wealthy control freak with an small army for hire, nothing out of the ordinary. He said he really appreciated the effort.

She didn’t feel any particular way about him. Chloe trusted him and that was enough for her. He had failed to mention he invited a third woman, one Chloe didn’t know. She was a tall red head and although not a muscular as Nadine, she’d been rather bulky. The woman introduced herself as Liz Shae. Liz seemed intimidating but had a very bubbly demeanor, making the Indian treasure hunter like her almost immediately while her South African partner had been hesitant to extend such graces. Chloe didn’t think much of it for the first day or two of the group partnership but was quite “tired of her bullshit” later on.

Nadine hadn’t taken that long to begin warming up to her and she though her apparent disdain of the woman, which she made clear, was uncalled for. Its not like they had history, Nadine had never seen her before in her life, she despised her all the same.The band traipsed the South American vegetation for some time and after a few skirmishes and series of elaborate, and unnecessary, puzzles ended up in a massive underground tavern.

They walked for what felt like hours and finally stumbled across it. An underground village, and to their disappointment, it was made of stone, not valuable metals. The city had been in ruin, most of the structures collapsed from what seemed to be more than just age. Warily they searched temples and homes for valuables. Paititi was still a city of gold, not made of it, but contained quite a bit of the material. 

The squad had collected quite a bit of coins, old jewelry and random trinkets while scowering the abandoned homes. They pocketed what they could find in the residential areas and quickly moved on.

A fortress in the centre of the city had been their next stop. The party hadn’t made it very far in before Chloe’s step caused a plate to sync into the ground. A trap door opened wide enough for her and Nadine, who’d been right behind her, to fall in. As soon as it had undone it closed above again them before a reaction could even be made and they went tobogganing down a musty, cobweb covered slide.

The pair went slipping and hollering down the passage until they splashed into a large puddle of water in a closed off room, still shallow enough that falling in, hurt. Badly.

Chloe coughed and sputtered out the water that got in her mouth when she had been screaming. “Millennium old puddle water…” she gagged, “Definitely not my first choice at the bar.”

Nadine rolled her eyes, “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so…” She carefully got to her feet with the other woman’s assistance.

As soon as they were standing they surveyed the area. The room they fell into was made of yellowed stone bricks. There were smears of brown fuzz on the walls, deceased algae and plant matter, and dust coloured grease on the ground. The stone work on the floor was very easy to get your foot caught on and trip. There was one layer, which was practically woven with large gaps and another large flat layer below that one that took up the entire area of the room. This barrier was repeated on the ceiling. The walls were roughly five metres high and had two symmetrical openings,

Chloe detached her radio from her belt loop and brought it up to her face. “Charlie? You there?”

The device crackled for a while before the man’s came through. “Chloe? Oh my god, you’re alive!”

She laughed, “I think so, yeah.”

“Where the hell did you guys go?” In the background Liz could be heard asking “Are you alright, Chloe?”

“Yeah, I’m okay-”

“I’m fine too, thanks for asking!” Nadine had been crouched near the grease on the floor, some of it on the index finger of her gloved left hand, inspecting it.

The raven haired woman rolled her eyes playfully, “Nadine’s okay too. We’re in some sort of room. Possibly a cell.”

Charlie’s voice came through the system again, “Do you see a way out?”

Nadine’s voice was unsure when she spoke. “Uh… Frazer?”

She held up a hand, in silent asking for a minute while looking around, “There’s two possible crawl spaces in the walls. We’ll see if we can make it up there but I doubt.”

“Liz and I will see what we can do. Over.”

“Frazer!”

“What?” She spun around and directed her attention at the stooped and mildly annoyed woman. The treasure hunter sighed and returned her radio to it’s place on her hip and strode over to her partner, joining her at her level near the ground. The ex-mercenary brought her finger closer to her associate, indicating for her to look. “Yeah, so?”

She rolled her eyes. “Its adipocere.” Chloe’s eyebrow arched. She rolled her eyes again. “Grave wax. It forms from body fat postmortem. There was a corpse here.”

Chloe hummed in thought bringing her own finger to her chin. “Where’d it go then?”

“Don’t know. But look, its pliable.”

“And?”

“Its usually firm; forms a cast around the body, especially on the face.”

She stood up an shuttered. “Let’s worry about that later, we’ve got to see if we can reach that opening.”

Nadine wanted to protest but decided she better not. As soon as she was upright again, a low rumbling rattled through the fortress. The two steadied themselves and looked up in time to see gallons upon gallons of water rushing out of what they thought would be their exit.

In no time at all Chloe’s radio was back near her mouth, shouting slightly, to be heard over the roaring of aqua. “Charlie! I’m afraid we may have a problem!”

* * *

By this time the duo had been floating in their aquatic prison. Mostly given up on trying to get out their on their own, Chloe wadded in the pool, watching her partner continue to chip and stab at the walls with the grappling hook of her rope. They’d already attempted to get out through the openings once they could reach them, but as expected the water flow was for too strong to allow them to even get so much as an arm inside.

They had less than a metre of air left and it was running out quick. Chloe stayed fiddling with communicator(thank god for water-poof technology), responding quickly as to not make Charlie worry too much. In the almost half an hour that had gone by she managed to guide them, based on how many seconds she and Nadine had been falling and the angle of the slope, roughly to where they were. Nadine was very well versed in terms of zoology, biology and chemistry, but ever need any assistance in anthropology, architecture or, shocking to quite a few, physics, and Chloe was your girl.

The other half of their party found a lower level of the fortress and had been searching around there while she notified them if she could hear them getting closer or feel any of their movements or “breaking shit” rock the drowning pit.

She sighed. “Give it a rest, China, you’ll just tire yourself out.”

Nadine grunted. “And do what? Relax, waiting for Charlie and your new girlfriend to come get us?”

“Of course they will.” Chloe continued to mess with the frequencies for no particular reason, not looking up from her clearly paramount work, “The poor thing can’t be too long without me. No need to become a green eyed monster, though.”

Nadine rolled her eyed, for the third time, hard. Quite coldly, she had responded. “I’m not jealous, Frazer. In order for me to be jealous, she’d have to have something I want.”

Chloe deadpanned, “Well thank the Gods you have a sense of humour, wouldn’t want you taking that seriously and getting asshurt, now would we?”

“I didn’t take it seriously.”

“Sure.”

The chocolate skinned woman turned to her, clear annoyance plastered on her features, “Excuse me for thinking that flirting when you have a team with you, here on business, is a little inappropriate.”

“You didn’t seem to mind me flirting with you.”

“That’s because we were alone. It’s usually just us.”

Chloe gawked at her, absolutely astonished. “Right.” She swam closer to the wall and looked up, trying to gauge exactly how much more time they’d have. Most of her effort and attention trained on the water, the ceiling and her mental maths, she basically thought out loud. “Ya know, China. If you think my butt’s cute and you don’t like the way Liz stares at it all you gotta do is say so.”

Nadine had been taken a back. She’d been facing the woman’s vertebral column but was very sure the shameless stimulation seeker’s face held no trace of chagrin, even if they had been locked in eye contact. “What the hell are you on about?”

Chloe looked over her shoulder, as if failing to remember the woman was right there. “Oh? Forget it.”

“No. No ‘forget it’. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

The treasure hunter faced her, echoing exhaustion at this conversation. “It means, I’m not a fucking idiot, Nadine. Did you really think I never noticed how you look at me?”

“Did you hit your head?”

“Did you?” Chloe composed herself before she rolled her eyes and reached up. Yip. She could touch the ceiling now. Muttering mostly to herself, she added, “To think you don’t even see the way I look back…”

“What was that?”

“Drop it, China.”

“No. Say it to my face.”

“Nandi, I said leave it alone.”

Before she could speak again a muffled voice was heard calling out to them. “Charlie?” Chloe swam to where the voice was loudest. “Charlie are you there?”

“Chlo?” he called back.

“Oh my God, Charlie we’re down here!”

“Hang on we got ya!”

The next few minutes were full of dust and pebbles falling from the ceiling. Gushing, crumbling and grazing consumed the air and it was soon revealed that Charlie and Liz had been pushing a slab of stone that had been covering the pit off. They had been seconds away from running out of air by the time they’d created a sizable gap that both women could fit through. Charlie helped them both out, Chloe first, then Nadine. Liz held Chloe's arms and made sure she was okay while the man looked over the other woman for signs of injury.

“Sure you’re alright?” he asked when he completed his search for things that could scar.

Chloe, bent over trying to catch her breath, cocked her head in his direction, “Never better. What about you, Nandi?” Nadine looked at her, but proceeded to pick algae off her watch without a word. “Oh c’mon. Really? What’s your problem?”

The former militia owner stood upright, glaring. “Me? I don’t have a problem.”

The ex-thief stood tall as well, “So you keep saying yet you’re acting so damn strange. I wanna know why,.I wanna know now. And I wanna have my Nandi back, please?”

She raised her eyebrows pointedly at this claim. “Your Nandi?”

Chloe seemed genuinely stunned. Eventually, she blinked back her shock and addressed her. “Fine. I want back the Nadine Ross I knew in India. The one who wasn’t so insufferable, all the goddamn time, just because you have a little crush or whatever.”

“Insufferable?” She faced her, “If I’m so unbearable to be around, Frazer, I can just go.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Well, fine then. Go.”

“I will.”

“See you around, Ross.”

Her onyx pony swung with the swiftness in which she turned her back to her partner. Could she even call her that anymore? Her partner.

Being called “Ross” in utter seriousness, stung. The one time Chloe had ever called her that, she’d been joking. A response to when Nadine had called her by her surname, the word drawn out on her lips when she had been confused on what was happening.

She blinked at the retort. For a brief moment the hurt was visible on her face. Charlie had seen it. Liz had seen it. Chloe, had not. She was facing away, arms folded over her chest and her eyes were closed, nose in the air in a quite aloof manner.

Nadine regained her composure and muttered one final “Fine…” before proceeding to find her own way out of the city. She hadn’t walked very far before she heard heavy footsteps quickening behind her. Nadine spun around. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Charlie Cutter. Her arms folded neatly in front of her bosom. “What do you want.” It was more of a demand than a question.

His hand rubbed the back of his meaty neck nervously. “Listen, I uh… By no means are we mates or anything but Chloe has told me a lot about you and…”

“And?” Her eyebrow arched and her combat boot tapped on the stone ground like a dog’s back paw when being scratched by his owner. But unlike a puppy, she wasn’t elated, her patience had been wearing thin.

“Well the way she talks about you. She cares about you. A lot. I don’t exactly know what happened… What I could hear of your conversation earlier was kinda smothered by a giant rock so…” Nadine’s eyebrow arched further. “What I’m trying to say is don’t worry about it. You two will work it out. Right?”

Her eyes fell to the ground, every other part of her body staying motionless aside for the rise and fall of her chest. “Maybe… Maybe not… I messed up. I know that. I hope she knows that I know that. I can’t necessarily help me feelings. But neither can she… It would be so much easier to get over it, if she’d quit messing with me.”

Charlie’s gaze followed hers. “Did you tell her that?”

“She won’t think I’m serious. We have this nasty habit of being all shits and giggles unless one of us is actually hurting because the other crossed the line… We should work on that…”

“Yeh, you should.”

She let a laugh void of any humour at all. “Why am I telling you all this? Why are you listening?” Charlie shrugged. “...Thank you…”

She turned to leave. “Hey.” Looking over her shoulder expectantly she didn’t bother to properly face him. “Are you really going to walk back by yourself?”

* * *

She brought the mug to her mouth and tilted it absentmindedly. A single drop of the dark liquid hit her tongue. Nadine pulled the ceramic flagon from her lips and looked into the stained cream coloured abyss. She sighed. The fluffy creature in her lap stirred and stretched her front legs then began kneading into her mama’s stomach affectionately. The tenderfoot treasure hunter smiled softly at her pet who then lept off and trekked to her dish, deciding it was time for her breakfast.

Nadine decided it would be best for her to get up as well. She set her mug down in the sink and began to clean her coffee machine. Her phone, which was left on the counter screen up, buzzed, a text from her younger brother. The smart phone’s screen lit up and her eyes were glued to her lock screen. She wasn’t so petty that she changed it as soon as she and Chloe got into a fight, because the image had been of both of them.

They were searching around the State of Pará in Brazil for gold stolen off a Spanish vessel and stumbled across a small herd of about twelve capybara. The rodents had been very calm and they befriended a few. Chloe thought it was an amazing photo-op and created an entire album on her phone for the occasion. She’d sent all the pictures to Nate, Elena, Sam, Sully and the animal expert herself when she’d gotten back home to Australia. Nadine had set her favourite as her lock screen.

Behind her clock was her own face, smiling, her dark haired partner next to her and one of the large rodents between them. She frowned. It had been a good day. Chloe had sat on a rock, her chin in her hands as she hung off every word that Nadine shared about the creatures. The former thief wasn’t much interested in zoology but was always fully engaged when the animal geek spoke about it. She loved that about her. 

She never made her feel weird for her quirks, or obliviousness. The treasure hunter in fact encouraged her, would talk about things for hours she couldn't care less about just because it made her happy. From what Nadine could tell, her happiness was enough entertainment for the woman to stay engaged. She never felt like she had to apologize for going quiet, or rambling on and on like an idiot about why pandas are complete morons, adorable morons, but morons in spite of that.

Nadine could be herself when Chloe was with her. They were different, but fairly similar. Not cut from quite the same cloth, but blendable with one another. Chloe loved her quirkiness and peculiarities. She had said so herself. And she loved hers. The way she'd drum on the steering wheel when she was axnxious while driving, slick her hair back ever so often because it would always find a way to get into her eyes. She relished how she picked at her teeth with her tongue when telling white lies, made cheesy jokes when tension was high, the way her face contorted into he most precious faces when she felt out of place. 

Her dark hair, her steel eyes, her pink lips, her sparse freckles, her thick lashes, her olive skin, her lean figure, her cynical humour, her endearing pet names, her swagger in her saunter, her horrid posture, her unprofessional work attire, her minor obsession with the colour red and the way she made her feel. The way she made her fall for her. Just everything, _Her._

A knock on her door drew her from her pensive state of mind. She placed the parts of her machine on the dish rack to dry, another knock beconing her. She hadn’t been properly clothed, or clean, she hadn’t even been at her apartment for twenty-four hours, but sighed and meandered to the front door anyway. Not bothering to look through the peep hole and just turned the bronze painted handle, pulling the egress way open.

On the other side of her threshold, the woman stood. Soaking wet from the pouring rains outside the complex, her hair stuck to her face and neck, her make up was smudged, her clothing, inappropriate for the weather being just a T shirt, boots and jeans, were damp and she was playing with the small golden figure that found its way to her hands whenever she was nervous and free to fiddle with it.

When they made eye contact the figure was stuffed into her pocket. Nadine was about to speak but was cut off by the woman wrapping her arms around her and pressing her lips to hers. She was shocked for a spell, but soon enough melted into the kiss, ignoring the feeling of the front of her shirt becoming completely soaked through, causing the skin of their chests to stick together. It didn't matter, she needed a shower anyway.

The ex-merc was latched onto her by the waist and mouth, holding tigher than she probably she should have, but no complaint was made. They hadn't need to speak. Neither woman was very good at saying the words "I'm sorry" when feelings were hurt, but they were always great at understanding each other without dialogue and burying the hatched.

She smelt like sweat, and that generic airline smell. Her skin was cold, clammy. She was a mess. Her mess. Her beautiful, dad joke making mess. And she loved her. She knew that. They both knew that. And so the pair stayed there, even after this kiss had broken, in devoted embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked it. There are a lot of feelings that go unspoken?? Like a LOT of things and its not JUST because I was lazy, I just didn't want to spoon feed you anything because if there's one thing I love of about Chlodine is that they just understand each other. No words needed. At first they'd try to explain and the other would brush it off, but after the elephant scene, they didn't even have to talk it was just "okay." And since they're both not people persons I found that sweet and wanted to bring that in here. You can come to your own conclusion why Chloe forgave her, how long she sat on it, etc etc. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it. Let me know how you feel about that.


End file.
